HCM CITY — Thirteen projects received first prizes in the annual National Science and Technology Contest for high school students in the southern region at an awards ceremony at Tôn Đức Thắng University in HCM City on Tuesday.

A total of 229 projects from 409 high school students in the southern region were submitted to the southern region’s contest, held from March 17 to 19 in HCM City.

Students from Bình Định Province, Kon Tum Province and Đà Nẵng City won two first prizes each.

Other first prizes were awarded to students from HCM City and Phú Yên, Gia Lai, Bình Thuận, Ninh Thuận, Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu and Hậu Giang provinces.

All first-prize winners will take part in an English test to qualify for participation in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) 2019 in the US.

First-prize projects were in the fields of social and behavioural sciences, biomedical and health sciences, cellular and molecular biology, embedded systems, software systems, robots, machine learning and artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, physics and astronomy, and chemistry.

Nguyễn Hữu Độ, deputy minister of Education and Training, said this year’s contest changed its assessment method to ensure objectivity.

“Scientists and lecturers in the southern region examined the contest in the northern region, and vice versa,” he said.

The contest organising board presented 25 second prizes, 35 third prizes and 49 fourth prizes for outstanding projects by high school students in the south.

Trần Phan Thanh Hải, a 12th grader with disabilities at Marie Curie High School in HCM City’s District 3, was a third-prize winner this year. Hải developed a robot that supports people with disabilities and patients receiving long-term treatment.

“The contest was a huge motivation for me to try to do something good and contribute to the community, especially people with disabilities,” he said.

In the north, from March 9-12, the contest attracted 252 projects from 487 high school students. On March 12, 15 projects were awarded first prize at a ceremony in Hà Nội. Of these, Lào Cai Province won four first prizes. — VNS